Linda Elliot Schmidt

Voice Instructor

Biography: Linda Elliott Schmidt is a Voice Instructor at Northwest Nazarene University. She earned her BA and MA in Music Education from Boise State University and an M.Ed. in Education Administration from the University of Idaho.

Throughout her career, Linda has taught music and served in various leadership roles in schools throughout Idaho, including Head of Choral Instruction at Arts West School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Eagle, Idaho, Interim Director of Choral Activities at Boise State University, Choral Music Director at Capital High School in Boise and as a Music Consulting Teacher for the Boise School District. She was selected Idaho Music Educator of the Year in 1997 and District III Choral Educator of the Year in 2002. She has also received the “Tenuto Award” from the Frank DeMiero Jazz Festival in Edmonds, Washington.

Her concert groups and jazz choirs consistently won top honors and were selected to perform for state IMEA and Northwest ACDA conventions and in Disneyland, Seattle, Portland, Salt Lake City and Victoria, British Columbia. Her select Jazz Choir was one of two high school choirs featured for sixteen years at the Sun Valley Dixieland Jazz Jamboree. Her concert groups opened for Josh Groban, Shania Twain and Mannheim Steamroller. Under her direction Capital Singers was mentioned in Downbeat Magazine as an “Outstanding and Upcoming” Vocal Jazz group.

Schmidt is an active ACDA and NAfME-qualified adjudicator and clinician and has held several offices for ACDA and IMEA. She is currently a member of the New Modernaires, a 5-voice vocal jazz group that performs with the Kings of Swing Big Band and is the founder of an adult Jazz Choir, ‘Essential Jazz.’